Ivanka Trump breaks the internet, probably the law, with bizarre Goya beans tweet

(Image credit: Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

published 15 July 2020

Ivanka Trump capped a bizarre day for the Trump White House late Tuesday by posting a photo of herself holding up a can of Goya beans, along with Goya's slogan in both English and Spanish.

Trump's Goya endorsement, which she posted on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, is pretty clearly a response to calls for a Goya boycott after the company's CEO, Robert Unanue, said at the White House last week "we're all truly blessed" to "have a leader like President Trump." Yes, Politico said Wednesday morning, "we understand that the chief executive of Goya appears to be a Trump fan, and that's angered some liberals. But ... this is ... just weird."

It's also probably illegal. "Executive branch employees may not use their government positions to suggest that the agency or any part of the executive branch endorses an organization (including a nonprofit organization), product, service, or person," the U.S. Office of Government Ethics explains, citing federal ethics laws. (Trump's oldest daughter is a White House employee.)

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Twitter, never a place to let a good troll go to waste, made some modifications to Ivanka's photo, from turning it into an endorsement of the new book by her cousin Mary Trump ...

... To commentaries on the White House's coronavirus response ...

... Including one solution infamously proposed by President Trump:

Some people even found a way to work in Ivanka Trump's new "Find Something New" job campaign:

Between Ivanka's tweet and her father's politically and factually questionable interviews and "at-times incoherent — and to some aides, alarming — Rose Garden news conference," it's fair to ask: "What is going on in the White House?" Jake Sherman and Anna Palmer observe at Politico. "It seems as if the president and his aides are in the midst of a fever dream, bereft of strategy, confused, listless, restless, uncomfortable, and desperate." Maybe at some point, they add, "the president's aides will convince him that there is a message to stick by — or maybe they believe what we just reviewed is the message that will work."

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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.